The Quest of Narrigh (The Other Worlds Book 1)

by S. K. Holder

  He was about to shout up to get the guard’s attention when the door burst open and two prison guards came running out, swords in hand, gaping up at the sky. Connor sneaked through the door. Another guard immediately apprehended him.

  ‘I need to speak with the Warden,’ Connor said at once, struggling in the guard’s iron-grip. ‘It’s urgent.’ He didn’t have a plan. He had gold. He hoped it was all he needed.

  The guard’s thick brows knitted together. His pocked face tightened in a frown.

  ‘It’s important,’ said Connor. ‘It’s about the attack.’

  The guard released him. ‘Go then,’ he said, ushering him towards the Warden’s hut. ‘Hurry!’

  Connor sprinted to the Warden’s iron hut. The Warden himself emerged looking miserable. His square face was set on a boulder of a neck and his fat belly was bursting out of his shirt. His teeth were set like an ivory block in his huge gaping mouth. A bunch of keys hung from the belt of his soiled trousers.

  ‘No children!’ he said, catching sight of Connor. ‘No children, no children, no children!’

  ‘I can pay you,’ said Connor. ‘I have gold.’

  The Warden’s eyes went wide and then as narrow as a nail. He looked Connor up and down. ‘Why are you dressed in those clothes?’

  ‘I’m from the theatre.’ There were theatres all over Narrigh. The costumes worn for such productions looked nothing like the clothing he had on, but Connor had a feeling that the Warden didn’t go to many theatres.

  The Warden rolled his tongue around inside his mouth. He doesn’t believe me, thought Connor, but he’s thinking about the gold. The guard who had detained him at the door was standing by the hut, polishing the hilt of his sword. It was obvious he was eavesdropping.

  ‘And who is it you have come to see?’

  ‘Thurden. I was told to ask for Thurden.’

  ‘Thurden?’ said the Warden. He disappeared into his iron hut, slamming the door behind him.

  Connor sensed the guard’s eyes boring into him. As he turned to look, the guard went back to polishing his sword. Connor suddenly remembered the Plowmen: the half-ogres, half-humans with fangs, who possessed the power to absorb players’ abilities. If there were none outside the dungeons, they would all be inside, ready to tap him with their feathery touch. You couldn’t hear them coming. He would need to be vigilant.

  The Warden didn’t seem particularly bothered about what was going on outside his dungeons. So far, the chaos had worked to Connor’s advantage. However, he didn’t want his luck to run out and the Warden was taking too long. He rapped on the door, glancing across at the guard who had returned to the dungeon gate drawn by the whinnying of a horse on the other side.

  When Connor got no reply, he pushed the door open and went inside.

  Bowed shelves, piled with dog-eared parchment, lined the walls of the Warden’s hut. At the end of the shelves, keys hung from metal hooks.

  Connor found the Warden flicking through the sheaves of paper in his hand. ‘Here we are,’ he said, teasing out a single sheet of parchment and tossing the rest back onto a shelf. ‘Thurden, Darque Goblin, brought in this morning and due for execution tomorrow at noon.’

  ‘A Darque Goblin. Are you sure?’ Connor didn’t remember seeing any Darque Goblins among the Sighraith Band. Had they taken Yate hostage?

  ‘I got it written right here,’ said the Warden, waving the sheet of parchment in front of Connor too quickly for him to read. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve had a Darque Goblin cross over the barrier. Of course, he was sure to say he didn’t cross over the barrier, that he didn’t mean us any harm and that he only came to deliver a message and blah de blah. You hear all that noise outside? That’ll be the Baruchian soldiers readying themselves for more goblin invaders, I’ll warrant. So what do you want with him?’

  ‘One of my friends is in trouble. I think Thurden might know where he is.’

  ‘I see.’ The Warden nodded. He put the sheet of paper on his desk. ‘I’ll want fifteen pieces of gold to let you go down.’

  ‘Fifteen!’ Connor spluttered.

  The Warden pressed his fist to his chin. ‘And not a gold piece less.’

  Connor handed the gold over to the Warden. That left him with only six gold coins. If Thurden asked for a ransom in return for Yate, then he would be in trouble.

  The Warden counted the coins twice. After he had locked the money in a box on the top of his desk, he took a key from one of the shelf hooks and shouted for a guard.

  One of the guards who had passed Connor, to see what was happening beyond the dungeon walls, reappeared. He had a thick white beard and pinholes for eyes.

  ‘What’s going on out there?’ the Warden asked the guard.

  ‘Don’t know,’ the guard replied, breathless. He had returned without his sword. Sweat poured from under his helmet onto his face. ‘No one knows. Some say a storm’s on its way. Others say, more Darque Goblins.’

  ‘As long as they don’t come running in here,’ said the Warden, handing him the key. ‘Take the boy down to the dungeons. Cell three hundred and sixty-three. Level four. Bring up five Plowmen when you’re done. Just in case.’

  Connor followed the guard down the rough-hewn steps leading to the dungeons.

  Candles burned in sconces on the walls. Ragged shadows crept up the walls and then slunk out of sight. Connor heard the wails, grunts, and growls of humans and beasts. He kept close to the guard, hoping to use him as a shield should the Plowmen appear. He would be lost without his abilities.

  The guard mistook Connor’s caution for terror. ‘You’ve nothing to fear. They can’t get out.’

  The guard led him along a passageway packed with cells on both sides. A number of the cells were nothing but iron boxes with hatches. The rest were cages with vertical steel bars. Connor noticed a long arm sticking out of a hatch, green and covered in boils. A bald, skinny man with hollow cheeks poked his head through the bars of his cell. He stuck out a yellow tongue.

  Connor sighted a dwarf in a blue waistcoat guzzling from a tin cup.

  A Drone Elf with a broken wing and crooked antennae threw itself against the cell bars. Connor jumped and collided with the guard’s back.

  ‘Okay, calm down boy,’ said the guard. ‘Here.’ He unlocked a cell door, two cells along from the Drone Elf.

  Connor saw the Darque Goblin hunched in the corner next to a tin bucket. Its skin was pale and blotchy. Like all Darque Goblins, this one had bat-like ears, clawed hands and feet, and a tuft of dark hair on its head. Stripped of its armour, it wore an old vest and trousers. It glanced at Connor, its violet eyes gleaming.

  ‘You came,’ said the goblin struggling to its feet.

  Connor stepped hesitantly into the cell. The guard locked the door after him. ‘Five minutes,’ he told him.

  The goblin was higher than his waist. It wrapped its arms around Connor’s leg. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you.’

  Connor pulled the goblin from his leg and then reeled away from it in disgust. He didn’t want the thing to touch him. Its features alone were enough to give him sleepless nights. He crouched low enough to match the goblin’s height. ‘I got a message from Yate to meet you here. Is he okay? Where is he?’

  Thurden stabbed at his chest. ‘You’re looking at him.’

  Connor stared at the Darque Goblin’s mouthful of pointy teeth in confusion and disbelief.

  ‘I changed myself into a Darque Goblin and I can’t change back until the Plowman’s Touch wears off.’

  Connor blinked and shook his head. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You’re a shape-shifter. What do you need me to do?’

  ‘I need you to get me out of here.’

  ‘I don’t know how to get myself out of here,’ said Connor, a little louder than he intended. He momentarily drew the guard’s gaze.

  The guard who had escorted him had his back to them. He was watching the Dwarf in the cell opposite, who appeared to have a cactus plant growing out of his head.
He had his foot stuck in his tin cup and was busy trying to get it out. The guard snorted with laughter.

  Yate stared at the plate of armour on his chest. ‘I see you’ve got yourself some Citizen armour and a new pet.’

  ‘I don’t have a pet,’ said Connor distractedly. He thought he smelt burning, but saw no smoke. ‘I got the armour from the Royal Halls.’

  ‘So what are you doing with a Kherrin Mawk inside your bag?’

  Connor looked down to see the creature’s head sticking out from his bag. So that’s what it was. He pushed it back in, ignoring its squawks of distress. ‘It’s a stowaway.’

  He heard someone shouting up ahead and watched the guard stalk off along the passage in search of the source. He had used his ability once before to remove the Dal-Carrion in the fortress. He had used the keyhole-of-light then. What if he could do the same thing to the cell bars? He studied them for a while, trying to imagine they were no longer there. He closed his eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Yate.

  ‘I’m going to try to use my ability.’ He saw a blue halo. Vertical lines ran through it. The lines in the halo represented the bars of the cell. He took a deep breath and then let the weight of his mind bear down upon the lines and they gradually melted away. Blue light flooded his vision, bathing him. He felt warm, weightless.

  He opened his eyes. The cell bars were still there. He frowned. Why wasn’t it working? ‘I don’t think it works on solid objects.’

  The goblin rolled his eyes. ‘Why don’t you just use your armour? It’s an energy weapon. It should emit enough shock-waves to blast us out of here.’

  Connor stared at his chest. In The Quest of Narrigh game, armour could be used as a weapon, if it was enchanted. Shock-waves had nothing to do with enchantments.

  Yate scurried over to the back wall and covered his ears. ‘Inflate your lungs with a deep breath. Hold it for five seconds. Should be enough.’

  Connor gazed at the cell bars again. He covered his ears too. He took the deepest breath he could muster and held it for one, two, three-’

  His chest grew warm and started to throb. A pulsating, transparent cone emerged from his breast-plate. He heard a loud crack. The blast was so powerful it ripped apart the bars in Yate’s cell and in the one opposite, tearing the head off the cactus plant on top of the caged dwarf’s head. The blast threw Connor into the back wall. He groaned, staggering to his feet. He could still feel the heat in his chest.

  ‘Next time, you want to let your body go limp,’ said Yate, one claw on his wrist. ‘Slump forward, that way, you’ll stay on your feet. Come.’

  They clambered over the stone and metal debris. They made their way back along the passage. Connor could smell a grisly blend of burning flesh and straw. He could feel the smoke in his lungs, the searing heat on his skin. He heard screaming above and below him. Frantic prisoners rattled their cell bars and hammered on their cage doors.

  Connor and Yate ran up the stairs, weaving through the horde of raging, stomping guards.

  ‘The dungeons on fire!’ yelled a man wearing nothing but a pair of tattered shorts. ‘The North are attacking!’ He careered into the chest of a Plowman coming up the stairs behind them.

  As they continued their ascent Connor’s eyes began to sting.

  They plunged into a plume of black smoke, through a narrow doorway and up another flight of stairs. The stairs seemed to disintegrate beneath him. He struggled to see where he was going. He didn’t complain when Yate, the goblin clambered onto his back. He was feather-light.

  He floundered along a series of branching passages, where cell doors hung open and deserted. He raced to the end of one passage and met a wall of raging fire. He reeled and stumbled at the sight of the lunging flames, and then he was back on his feet and away again. He careered down another passage and came to a stop on a balcony.

  He saw that the balconies ran around the inner perimeter of each level. A series of steep stairs, acting as diagonal bridges, linked each level to the one above it. Three guards, two levels down, flung themselves over the balcony engulfed in flames. Their screams were snuffed out when they hit the stony ground below.

  Drone Elves were responsible for setting the fires. Connor observed them darting back and forth between levels, shooting red fireballs from their hands.

  He sprinted to the foot of the diagonal staircase and started up it. Some of the steps caved in as his feet touched them, forcing him to leap across yawning rifts of stone. He reached the top of the stairs. He was only one level down from the dungeon entrance.

  Connor didn’t feel as if he was running anymore; he felt as if were flying.

  Not before long, he had reached the Warden’s hut. It stood open and empty.

  Guards and prisoners poured out of the dungeon door. Connor joined them, careful to avoid the Plowmen pressing amongst the throng.

  He broke away from the dungeon and the crowds and ran towards the city square.

  He had almost forgotten about the creature clinging to his back until Yate shouted in his ear. ‘I guess you figured out by now that negotiations with the Shardner have broken down. We are at war.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  The Guild Vaults in the Kingdom of Baruch are grander than all the vaults in Narrigh. The marble tiled floors are trimmed with gold motifs. A myriad of hand-blown glass lamps dangle from a vaulted ceiling, decorated with mosaic tiles.

  At one end of a sloping corridor, flanked with gilded marble columns, is a gold statue of the last King, Kalgar. The bearded King sits upon his gold throne. He holds a rolled parchment in one hand and a goblet in the other. He smiles down at his Queen, Irentha, carved into the central board of the three-panel door leading to the vault rooms, where Guild membership is imperative…

  Skelos liked being invisible. It was an ability no Citizen possessed. He could return to the Royal Halls, fetch Amelia and spy on Osaphar whilst there. He could sit on the Shardner’s Council and no one would be any the wiser. The Avu’lore and invisibility would be the underpinnings of his power. His name would be legend, his power absolute.

  He made his way down the steep corridor, clawing his way along the marble columns. He may have been invisible, but he quickly learned that he could bump into things, and once more, things could easily bump into him, including Plowmen.

  When Skelos entered the Vaults, he didn’t see any Plowmen or guards. Something was very much amiss. Cracks had appeared in the vault walls and on the roof, cracks that were certainly not there before. People were scurrying up and down the slope, laden with items they had taken from the vaults: bottles of potions, bulging sacks, armour, swords, daggers, axes and more.

  Skelos went through the three-panel door. A Baruchian guard came ambling out of the Theria Elves vault room with a cluster of tiny green and red bottles in his hands. Skelos plucked a green bottle from the guard without him noticing.

  He smiled to himself and then frowned when he spotted the Guild Master. The sleeves of his obligatory red tunic peeped out from behind the panel door. There was another man speaking with him: tall, skin the colour of mahogany wood. He wore gloves and an oilskin tunic. He carried a Lightning sword in his hand.

  Vastra! Skelos blundered backwards, forgetting for a moment that he was invisible. What was the Citizen doing here? Is there a warrant out for my arrest? If there weren’t, he would have been insulted. He composed himself and marched up to Vastra. He came to a halt directly behind the Citizen.

  ‘I need your help to obtain some items,’ Vastra was demanding of the Guild Master, ‘a summoning enchantment, an invisibility potion, one combat shield, and a-’

  The Guild Master dabbed his mouth with his sleeve. Skelos noticed he wasn’t wearing any shoes. ‘And what is the name of your guild?’

  A silly question. Citizens had their own guilds in Odisiris. They held none in Narrigh.

  Vastra tapped his foot impatiently. ‘I’m not in one. Just get me what I need.’

  The Guild Master began to move
out from behind the door. A green fire-bolt shot past his ear and he quickly retreated behind it again. Skelos joined him. He looked about for the assailant but saw no one.

  The stray fire-bolt did not faze Vastra. He locked his gaze on the Guild Master.

  ‘Am I correct in thinking that you want me to help you take items from a vault where you have no membership?’ The Guild Master stared at the sword in Vastra’s gloved hand.

  ‘I am following the Shardner’s orders.’ He waved a piece of paper in front of the Guild Master’s squinted eyes.

  ‘I can’t help you,’ said the Guild Master. ‘The Plowmen have been called to defend the city from the Northern attack. Meanwhile, the Vaults are left unguarded. Everyone is clearing out. All the vaults are open. Feel free to browse. Now if you’ll excuse me.’

  The Guild Master slipped out from behind the door. Vastra grabbed the Guild Master’s elbow before he could scamper away. ‘Not so fast.’

  Northern attack! Vaults unguarded? Skelos knew which served him best. He hastened to the first vault. It had a sign on the door, which read, ‘Storm Faction Vault One’.

  The floors of the vaults were divided into squares of wood and cobbled stone. There were still items hovering above the shelves: armour, clothing, weapons and assortment of multi-coloured stones. Each item was surrounded by a yellow cube, a protective shield that could only be broken by Guild members with the authority of the Guild Master. No wonder Vastra requires the Guild Master’s help. He won’t get it with the Guild Master dead.

  Skelos swiftly moved on to the next vault belonging to the Blade Faction. Again, he found plenty of items, but no way to get at them. He tried the Bolt-Shot whip. The Lashes juddered to a stop the second they made contact with the protective shields that enveloped the prized items.

  ‘This is useless.’ Invisibility wouldn’t solve his problem. Magic was required to break through the protective shields. He didn’t have time to search all the vault rooms never mind join a Guild. He thought about going after Vastra. No doubt, he will have acquired the Guild Master’s help by now. I could jump straight in, take what I need and run.